


I Fall Apart (I'd Come for You)

by zwolftenaugust



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 08:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20635814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zwolftenaugust/pseuds/zwolftenaugust
Summary: Lately, Chanyeol's dreams became more vivid; too real, too intense, as if he’s in someone’s body and doing everything he does but cannot control his movement. He even gets into the dreamland immediately when he as simply as falls asleep or closes his eyes.





	I Fall Apart (I'd Come for You)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sugar_and_Salt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sugar_and_Salt/gifts).

> Dear recipient, I was really excited when I saw this prompt. It's really hard to get the story out of my brain, but I hope this story did it justice! 
> 
> I'm very thankful to the Mod for their patience with me.

_ “You’re 3 minutes late.” _

_ He hangs his head low but doesn’t say anything. It’s an eerily quiet night, not even a stray dog passes by the narrow alley he’s currently meeting these guys at. No high school student will be normally seen at the scene, even at an area near a quite reputable cram school because it’s really late. The guys in front of him, four people in total, don’t look like they belong at the place unlike him. _

_ Ah. Maybe that’s why they called him. Or, scouted him. _

_ “This is a trial,” one guy hands him an envelope. It’s plain white, nothing unusual, and there is an address at the front side. He studies the envelope a little bit, but the guy stops him. _

_ “Send this envelope to the address, don’t open it. No questions asked. No talking. Knock on the door six times and then three times, wait until someone comes out. Hand that envelope and leave immediately. Understood?” _

_ He hesitantly nods. It’s pretty simple, he should be fine. With a small step he begins to step back out of the alleyway and goes straight to the address. He knows this place; a dingy apartment complex built in the 80s, 10 blocks away. He’s supposed it doesn’t have proper security staff so getting in won’t be a hassle. _

_ The stairs inside the building look murky but he keeps climbing up. He caresses the envelope inside his hand with his fingers and feels something like a heavily packed powder. He has watched dramas enough with his mother in the past to guess what it is. _

_ Never did he imagine that he would stoop this low, until today. _

_ The corridor is dark, with very minimal lights on the roof from yellow bulbs. He looks at the numbers by the walls and finally finds 313. Inhaling a long breath, he knocks six times and pauses, before continuing with three knocks. _

_ The door opens harshly, revealing a young guy with bloodshot eyes. _

_ He doesn’t ask for the envelope but rather snatches it out of his hand. That guy quickly goes back to his room and slams the door close. He freezes for 5 seconds, still not processing what just happened, before he snaps back to reality and runs toward the stairs. _

_ Home. He just wants to go home. _

_ Mother. _

_ Mother! _

  
  


Chanyeol stares at the white ceiling above his bed. His phone on the study desk is ringing its alarm, but he doesn’t really have the energy to stand up and turn it off.

Sleeping becomes exhausting from the last two months. At this rate, he isn’t sure if he ever gets a proper rest at all. Maybe he needs to invest to a good brand of sleeping pills. But first, he must do something other than lying on the bed. No company will give a damn if you show up at work exhausted because of your dreams in the previous night.

To be very honest, it’s not unusual for him to be exhausted by dreams. Since he was a child, he found himself unable to turn off his brain and resulted in him getting vivid dreams so often. His mom once brought him to a brain doctor when it got serious, and she was left disappointed when the doctor said that it was the result of his very active brain and prescribed him with low-dose antihistamines to help him sleep. He never talked about it again ever since.

But lately, those dreams became more vivid; too real, too intense, as if he’s in someone’s body and doing everything he does but cannot control his movement.

He even gets into the dreamland immediately when he as simply as falls asleep or closes his eyes. Although Chanyeol isn’t someone who gets paranoid over things easily, he knows that this string of events is nothing sort of ordinary. Sometimes, he doesn’t realize that he has fallen asleep. He could close his eyes and he would see a classroom, similar yet different from the one he used to go to. He would feel normal until he saw classmates he doesn’t know of and the teacher he doesn’t remember teaching anything in his school. And someone would nudge him, and he then realized that he was actually sleeping in seating position in his working area.

This is not good, he knows. But he doesn’t really know what to look for on Naver if he does want to look into it.

In the end, he keeps it to himself, telling people that he is tired and cannot sleep because of the upcoming project. The project itself is still on the planning stage and it’s still a bit loose on the schedule but he’s notorious in his workplace to be very enthusiastic in every stage of a project so he can use that as an excuse. And that, no one will question if he suddenly zones out or accidentally closes his eyes and falls into another dream during work hours. He always has one of those days, anyway. 

Chanyeol wonders if he better brings this problem up the next time he meets Jongin. That junior from college has always liked reading everything, from ancient Chinese history to obituary news from old clippings. He might have read something about falling into series of lucid dreams.

But first, coffee. He needs at least two cups of it to get through the day.

  
  


*******

“Maybe he’s your soulmate?”

Chanyeol chokes on his iced tea. Soulmate? What was his junior smoking?

“Jongin, I’m serious.”

“I’m serious, hyung,” Jongin keeps scrolling on his phone, as if he wasn’t just blurting something nonsense a second ago. “Wait, I’m trying to find this article of research about soulmates. It’s totally scientific! Wait a minute…”

The oldest of the two plays with his angle’s hair pasta and sighs. He only has heard about that term from romance novels his older sister collected and that is what it is: a fiction. There is no such thing as a soulmate, two halves being one, or other cheesy descriptions explaining it. It’s ridiculous.

But if Jongin, Kim Jongin who always stayed in the library for the whole 4 years of university education if he didn’t have any class, said that there is soulmates that means soulmates are somewhat true. Or at least, there’s a scientific answer regarding how love and relationships actually work.

“Here, here,” Jongin nearly shoves his phone to Chanyeol’s face if Chanyeol didn’t avoid it. “This research said that it is possible that we have a soulmate, yet it is actually toxic to think that our lover or partner is our soulmate. There are also some cases that someone’s heart would beat even faster when their other half was in danger, and someone could see what their other half see. Sounds familiar, right?”

Chanyeol takes his junior’s phone to take a look at the research page better. It’s in English, and thanks to his 1-month exchange experience to NYU a few years ago he could get by with his average reading skills. It is said that the research conducted in 5 continents with more than 500 couples from 10 random countries. The result is the couple who are also soulmates to each other tend to have the same brain wavelength, and their brains are very well developed active, and well adapted to each other they sometimes got into REM state at the same time when they slept. Some couples even could get a hint of fragrance their other half smelled. The results varied, but the conclusion is solid: soulmates are linked in some ways to another, and that is the first and most obvious sign you are a soulmate to another person.

That’s a lot to take. Chanyeol shakes his head to ease the dizziness slowly creeping up his head before giving the phone back to its owner.

“Well?” Jongin prompts.

“I don’t know,” is the only answer Chanyeol can let out.

*******

Listening to Jongin’s suggestion, Chanyeol places a notebook and a pen at the bedside table. He can take notes of what happened in his dream before his memory fades. Jongin told him that the memory in the human brain will fade after 1 minute and 1 second; Chanyeol vaguely remembers that information from a comic book.

After a week, there are a lot of things he wrote under a list and the realization gets murkier day by day.

The guy in his dream is Kim Jongdae. Chanyeol got that when the gang called him Kim and after he was done with his business, he would run to his mother at home and the mother would call him Jongdae.

Jongdae is still in high school. He delivered the dubious packages still in uniform, and the backpack feels heavy on his back. He peels off his shirt after he sees his mother at home and goes to the bathroom to wash his uniform by hand, wrings them dry, and hangs them. He then irons another uniform he had washed the previous day for the next day before getting into his small bedroom to catch some sleep. Chanyeol’s dream is black and blank after that.

And they are not just dreams; Chanyeol one day closed his eyes after watching TV on one weekend and he could see a line of people in front of him when he handled the cashier machine. He closes his eyes during lunch with his colleagues and he can see himself in front of the washstand in what seems like a school toilet. Chanyeol tries to sleep, and he can see his eyes misty and watery and he can hear himself sobbing under the tranquil darkness of his blanket.

Jongdae, a couple weeks later, cries under the pillow to muffle his sobs, begging God to take his life and his mother’s if this cannot get easier. Chanyeol gasps, automatically gets up to his feet to get out of his room before he halts.

What can he do? He doesn’t even know where this Jongdae lives. He doesn’t know how to get there without closing his eyes and killing himself in the process. And he doesn’t know what to do with Jongdae after… after this.

But he does know one thing: he needs to meet his soulmate as quickly as he can.

Chanyeol spends the rest of the night browsing on the internet about someone named Kim Jongdae. He never saw Jongdae standing in front of a mirror before, so he doesn’t know what he looks like. He finds 5 Kim Jongdae across Korea who are still in high school age, and 3 of them are on Facebook. They look pretty normal and happy in their display pictures and pictures shared on the platform, unlike a troubled young guy who is forced into a drugs distribution chain.

He shakes his head. Those who smile the widest hide the biggest pain; he knows that phrase really well.

He notes all information down on the notebook closes it. He sighs deeply, and reaches for his phone. It’s still too early in the morning, but he’s sure Jongin will open it after 9.

_ **I need your help. Can you come to my apartment immediately after work?** _

Chanyeol leaves his phone while he prepares for the day. It’s gonna be a long day.

*******

Chanyeol leaves work early. He told his team leader that he has an urgent family issue to attend and he will be out of reach for the weekend. When he reaches home, he finds Jongin on the sofa in his living area, sipping a cup of tea. Chamomile, Chanyeol notes from the whiff of the steam.

“Did you come with your car?”

“As per your request, hyung,” Jongin answers as he stands up and gives him a tall glass of iced tea. It’s raspberry mint; trust Jongin to remember what he likes. “Care to brief me what we are gonna do this evening, Chanyeol hyung?”

Chanyeol leads them to the sofas to sit before he tells the story from the beginning. About how this boy, supposedly his soulmate, is a troubled high school student. He works a part-time job to support his household with his sick mother. If he’s not working, he’ll be a delivery boy for a gang’s drug dealing. He saw everything every time he closes his eyes; even now, Chanyeol can see that the boy is walking away from school behind his closed eyes.

“Can you tell him something, hyung? Like telepathy? Since his eyes are connected to yours.”

Chanyeol opens his eyes and stares at his friend, before shaking his head. “He was crying to sleep last night when I really, really tried hard to reach out to him in my mind. It didn’t work.” He sighs. “He… he wants everything to end.”

Jongin frowns. “Has he ever given the clue of where he lives? It’s better if we can meet him soon, hyung.”

“That’s what I want to do today,” Chanyeol smiles. “Will you help me note down everything that I can see from his eyes? And if we finally know his exact location or if he gets into trouble, we can immediately go to him.”

And that’s what they do: Chanyeol closes his eyes, reads everything from what Jongdae’s eyes see for him to read out loud, and Jongin notes them down for him to try to locate where it is exactly. Chanyeol gets frustrated because Jongdae’s eyes are blurry, probably because he doesn’t wear glasses, and he often looks down to the road. No clue will be lying down the road, come on, Chanyeol feels slightly irked by the situation.

Until Jongdae goes to the locker room to change his uniform, that Chanyeol catches a glimpse of his face in a small mirror on the inside of the locker. 

“Jongin!” Chanyeol shouts. He can hear a pen and a book tumble from the table to the floor. Poor him, he might have fallen asleep while he was waiting for Chanyeol’s instruction. “It’s Kim Jongdae from Daejeon Noeun High School. His name is the last search in my Facebook. Look into it in the map, find any nearby Lotteria branch within the area. Please,” Chanyeol adds, out of desperation. Jongdae is in Daejeon, 3 hours away from Seoul; Chanyeol doesn’t know if he still has time to go and reach out to his soulmate.

“I’m on it,” Jongin answers him, his fingers already on his laptop keyboard. Jongdae in his eyes is currently manning the cashier, sorting up fried chicken in the warmer to fill the time when there is no customer ordering. “There are two Lotteria branches in that area within 10 km but we can still manage. Do you want us to go now?”

Chanyeol finally opens his eyes and sighs. “Let’s go now, we are running out of time.”

Three hours on the road to Daejeon, filled with anxiety and apprehension. Chanyeol keeps his eyes closed, keeping an ‘eye’ to Jongdae and Jongin speeds up on the highway. Fortunately his soulmate is still working hard, sometimes working on his homework from the under table when the hour is slow. Jongdae looks at the road outside from the glass window, sighing when he sees that it’s beginning to pour.

Chanyeol can see the clinic right across when Jongdae works. He opens his eyes and tries to find the name of the clinic on maps.

“Jongin,” Chanyeol attaches Jongin’s phone back to the dashboard. “We go here. Jongdae is working on the building across it. I saw the sign just now.”

“Okay,” the driver steps on the gas to speed up.

The sky is completely dark and pouring hard when they finally enter the area where Jongdae works. Chanyeol trusts Jongin for driving to the location while he closes his eyes once again, to check on what Jongdae is doing.

_ “This is my last day. Thank you for everything, hyung.” _

_ “It’s unfortunate that you quit… You always bring the sunshine into this oil-scented kitchen. But good luck on your study, Jongdae-yah.” _

_ “My mom has gotten better so I can focus on my school… I will do my best.” _

No. His mother just caught fever last night. He went to sleep only after 2, and not without sobbing his heart’s content.

_ “Good luck, Jongdae.” _

_ “Yes… farewell, hyung.” _

“Hyung, we’re here.”

Chanyeol wastes no time to unbuckle his seat belt and steps out into the rain, running to the closed Lotteria store. The front door is already locked, so Chanyeol runs around to find a back door.

There is someone at the back door in front of a big rubbish bin in a small alley. He’s well protected with a big rain coat, but Chanyeol knows from his back figure.

“Kim… Kim Jongdae?”

The guy turns around. It’s Jongdae. His eyes look at Chanyeol’s soaked up appearance, and his gaze lacks acknowledgement. And in his right hand, he’s currently holding a small cutter.

His left wrist is bleeding slightly.

Chanyeol strides quickly to the younger guy to wrench the cutter out his hand. Jongdae gasps, forgetting what he was doing before the stranger appeared in front of him. He tries to fight to get his knife back, but the older guy catches him in his arm and holds him tight, not letting him move.

“Don’t.”

“Who are you?” Jongdae nearly screams, his voice muted under the heavy rain. “Give it back!”

“Don’t do it again.”

“Why do you care?!” Jongdae shouts again, but the steady look on the unknown guy’s eyes make him break. “What do you know?” He gives up, his body goes slack in the guy’s embrace. It’s been a long while since the last time anyone hugged him; his mother has been sick for a little too long.

“I knew that you cried to sleep last night.” 

“What?”

“Your mom is sick, and she got a fever yesterday night. And you were exhausted.”

“How---”

“But don’t give up,” Chanyeol throws away the cutter and his now idle hand joins to hug the younger guy tighter. He’s so skinny and brittle, and Chanyeol’s heart aches even more. “I’ll help you. Don’t give up.”

“Who are you?” Jongdae looks up to the other guy. 

Even under the pouring rain, the guy’s smile warms his icy cold heart.

“I’m Park Chanyeol. And I believe that we are soulmates. Will you come with me? To the clinic first to tend your wounds, and we can talk more after that.”

Jongdae looks at two knife wounds on his wrist. The blood has congealed, but can he believes this person? He really wants to believe this person. He really wants to believe that someone actually wants to help him.

“Okay, Chanyeol hyung.”

He wants to believe that someone actually _cares_.


End file.
